Dec. ^, 1900.1 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
48S 
wondering if there was no sound adrift upon the night. 
He caught one, faint and clear, Hke a far-off bugle note 
or baying of a hound, yet neither ; suspected, but not quite 
identified, until a moment later it came with a louder 
clamor. 
"Geese, by gum ! A-comin' this way. Oh, if they only 
would, an' fly low." 
He stepped to the cover of a bushy thorn tree and 
crouched behind it, peering out sharply. Presently the 
V-shaped squadron became dimly defined, wedging its 
swift way across the blurred depths of sky, now plough- 
ing under for a moment a twinkling star, now letting it 
flash forth again, and all the while growing into a more 
distinct and darker line against the blue. Now the forked 
shadow slid past along the ground, and now the flock was 
straight above him, each individual outlined against the 
sky. 
''They're higher'n Gilderoy's kite," he said, bringing the 
rifle to his shoulder and bending backward, "but I'll give 
'em a partin' salute." 
The moonlight glinted on the silver sight and he saw 
it through the notch of the rear sight well forward of one 
of the flankers as he pulled the trigger. The sharp re- 
port was answered by a blare of aerial trumpets as the 
slowly rising puff of white smoke veiled the fast receding 
flock of geese, and when it lifted all had vanished. 
Aunt Charity sat by the fireside knitting and occasion- 
ally looking at the clock and wondering what could keep 
Elijah so long after it was too dark for shooting. 
"He hain't got no turkey, I know he hain't, or he'd ha' 
be'n hum." Her lips moved to her thoughts, but with 
no sound. "I told him he wouldn't, at fust, I did. Wal, 
we'll hefto give up a-hevin' Lyddy, an' I didn't sense 
afore haow I was alottin' on it jest for her sake, poor 
critter. Ah, well," she sighed heavily, and the sound 
breaking in upon the monotonous treble of the tea kettle, 
the droning bass of the stove draft, the tick of the clock 
and click of her needles, she became aware how still it 
was— still in the house, yet stiller out of doors, from 
whence came no sound whatsoever. She listened for 
Elijah's step crunching the frozen ground. 
Suddenly somewhere from the silence burst the clear, 
sharp crack of a rifle, not near enough to startle her by 
its stiddenness, only setting her to wondering at its un- 
timeliness. Then, while she listened in the succeeding 
silence, it wzs broken as suddenly by a tremendous crash- 
ing fall of some heavy but not solid body on the roof. 
Roof boards and shingles cracked beneath its weight, yet it 
gave back a softened thud of rebound and then with regu- 
lar mufjfled strokes slid down the steep incline of crackling 
shingles till it fell with another thud upon the broad, 
wooden doorstep. At the same instant a strange wild fleet- 
ing clamor seemed to fill the air, swelling and dying in brief 
passage. These startling sounds gave Aunt Charity a great 
shock, but not great enough to long overcome her 
curiosity. Bearing a candle in one trembling hand, with 
the other she cautiously opened the door and saw some 
sort of a large fowl lying in a collapsed heap upon the 
step. She stooped for closer inspection, lifting with timid 
fingers the broad-billed head and feather-clad neck. As 
she did so, she caught a glimpse of Elijah standing a 
little distance down the path. His rifle was at a ready, for 
he was maneuvering to get the ancient rooster between 
himself and the moon, when Aunt Charity made her in- 
opportune appearance. 
"Why, 'Liger, why did ye want to heave it onto the 
ruff an' scare me half to death? 'Tain't no turkey. What 
on airth is it?" 
He drew near, as much puzzled for a moment as she. 
"Wal, I swan," he broke forth, exultantly, as he 
realized his luck, "I did git one arter all. It's a wil' 
goose, Cherry, an' I bet there won't be another roasted in 
the hull taown to-morrer. We'll feed Lyddy like the 
Queen o' Sheby." Rowland E. Robinson. 
Christmas Under the Palms. 
When Christmas comes in midsummer — and that is 
what happens in the Southern Hemisphere — one is apt to 
get it mixed up with the Fourth of July; and when such 
a state of confusion exists it should be plain to any com- 
prehension that it is impossible to get into the Christmas 
card frame ol mind at all. If it had not been for the 
suggestion of Talolo, I should never have thought of 
having a Christmas tree for the little people of Vaiala. 
Talolo began it im-mediately after the Independence 
Day celebration, and it is just as well that he began suffi- 
ciently far ahead, for Samoa is so remote and the chances 
of communication come at such long intervals that when 
it is sought to do anything involving materials not kept 
in the traders' shops on Apia beach it is necessary to 
start months ahead in order that tilings may be sent for 
from San Francisco or Sydney. 
The national holiday had yielded such rich pickings 
for Talolo that he felt justified in figuring out what next 
holiday was to be kept and which might be turned to his 
own advantage. He plied me with questions until I 
found it best in the end to give him a summary descrip- 
tion of the way Christmas was kept in that distant 
America which sent people down to Vaiala to help the 
Samoans to a government which they did not want at 
all. In the description he found two general ideas — one 
which he could comprehend, one which was to-' him an 
utter mystery. That presents should be given was a 
tiling that he could readily understand — that was a thing 
that the Samoans were doing all the time ,and were under 
no restriction of waiting for one single day in the year 
on which to do it. But the snow was the great mystery. 
That was a thing he knew only from the Bible lessons 
which formed the great part of his schooling. I think 
that he knew by heart every verse that mentioned snow 
and ice. It is a little hard to imagine a boy who knows 
nothing of snow, and who will never see it; who will 
never get his hands red and chapped making snowballs; 
who will never feel the crisp, bracing air of winter as he 
marks the track of rabbit and fox and winter bird on 
the shining surface. So, when Talolo asked me to show 
him how Christmas was kept in what he called my 
island, it was probably with the expectation that in some 
way I could perform the miracle of bringing a snow 
storm under the blazing equator. 
In this particular he was doomed to disappointment. 
for the weather is a hard thing to control, and one of 
the few things in Samoa which the three consuls did 
not assume to settle after some fashion or other. But 
by speaking early Talolo secured my promise that the 
next Christmas should be celebrated after my own home 
fashion, for there would be time to order the necessities 
from San. Francisco. .. 
Talolo was an interesting youngster, and sufificieritly 
ornamental in a picturesque way to earn the trifling 
gifts for which he had not the slightest hesitation in ask- 
ing, when he was ready to move along to his own home. 
I have already made it clear what was my debt to him for 
knowledge of the woodland ways of Samoa, and if I had 
in the end to pay for the company with tins of meat or 
salmon, still Samoa after all is not the only land where 
fine growing boys have appetites in proportion. It was 
a comfortable arrangement all around. From Talolo I 
learned new kinds of island life every day. Talolo was 
only too happy to be where he could look at my "shoot 
gun," and perhaps be entitled to bring it to his cheek and 
take empty aim at the little green parrots in the tree tops, 
or to fetch me a cartridge when some Vaiala pigling had 
scraped through my Robinson Crusoe tree fence, and was 
to die the death for unlawful entry and trespass. As for 
Talolo's papa, that fat chief of the village was extremely 
v.'ell satisfied with the arrangement. In some mysterious 
way he had acquired just two words of English. As to 
one of them the less said the better; it is very forceful and 
is usually printed with a long dash. But strangest of all 
was the other word, "civilized," which Le Patu had gath- 
ered as being the difference between islanders and for- 
eigners. In a general way he seemed to feel that I was 
going to civilize Talolo. He knew himself too old to be 
civilized, but the boy being as yet young might be amen- 
able to civilizing influences, and' as he grew up might ac- 
quire foreign habits to such an extent as to secure him a 
comfortable income, well-paid idleness being the highest 
Samoan aspiration. These were things that Le Patu used 
laboriously to explain to me, but Talolo would have 
winke^ had there been any significance to that action in 
his native custom. As it w^as he made the odd little ges- 
ure of the hands which amounts to the same thing all 
over the Pacific. 
The Christmas tree, then, was to be a part of the civ- 
ilization of Talolo. Incidentally the other youngsters of 
Vaiala village were included, and my order was sent 
across half the Pacific Ocean for the needed supplies. 
The making of the list of things to be sent was heart- 
r.ending. It was easy enough to provide the useful things. 
There was no need of anything better than the traders 
could supply, and therefore this side of the question 
could be deferred. But it was only fair that each child 
should have something that was of no use at all — ju.st a 
toy intended solely for amusement. That was by no 
means so easy a problem to tackle. In the first place, 
whatever the .toy might be, it mu.st be sufficiently com- 
mon to avoid the chance of attracting envy and being 
taken away hy virtue of the Samoa fashion of asking 
for \yhatever you may desire and getting it, too. Then 
there was the further difficulty that there did. not seem to 
be any Samoan games or toys. Cricket was played on 
the green and casino indoors, but these were foreign in- 
troductions. There was a sort of shuffleboard for grown- 
up people, and very young children amused themselves 
by sailing toy boats made of a leaf with a feather for a 
sail. But there were no tops, no marbles, no kites, no 
dolls, and worst of all, not one of the children would have 
known what to do with any of the toys of civilized child- 
hood, and no matter what might be decided on, it would 
be necessary to teach the recipients what to do with it 
afterward. For the girls the choice was fairly easy. I 
made up my mind that each one should have a dressed 
doll, and trust to the general allowance of human nature 
to teach these little women what to do with them. For 
the boys I made as general a selection as possible of toys 
least likely to be broken and such as would call for the 
least amount of instruction as to their use. Thus the 
order was prepared and sent for its fulfillment over many 
thousand miles of sea. 
The settlement of the details of the Christmas celebra- 
tion — a thing so simple and customary in lands where 
people are used to it, so difficult in these islands of the 
torrid zone — was left to Talolo and myself. Before we 
were finished with it the task had developed many of the 
elements of a problem. 
"On Christmas Eve, Talolo," I instructed my pupil 
in the manners and customs of the people whom Samoans 
call Papalangi — "that is to say, on the night before 
Christmas^ — the children in some of our families before 
they go to sleep hang up their stockings over the fire- 
place, and in the night good old Santa Claus comes 
down and fills the stockings with all sorts of good 
things." 
"Aue, aue, Tamaita'i," replied the boy, after giving 
consideration to the subject in its various aspects as 
known to himself from the Samoan point of view. "Aue, 
aue, great grief is on my face, for that now I am sure 
that there can be no Papalangi Christmas in Vaiala. Our 
fireplaces are no more than shallow pits in the floor of 
our houses, and not such tubes of iron as you have 
in the very dignified house where Tanoa cooks the food 
you eat. Nothing can be done at all for us poor people. 
We are scarcely better than the heathen we used to be 
before the lotu came from Tahiti and taught us to sing 
hymns and go to church." 
"That can be arranged, Talolo," I replied, with intent 
to cheer him our of his despondency. "You can set sticks 
at each side of your firepots and string a cord of sennit 
from stick to stick, which will do quite as well." 
E le'mafai lava, Tamaita'i," continued the lad. "It is 
not to be done at all, for suppose we have put the sticks 
in place and strung the sennit across the firepot, what is 
there for us to hang on the cord? I have no stockings 
such as Papalangi children wear. No Samoan chief or 
tulafale or common man ever has any stockings, nor have 
our women, nor yet the little chfldren. The only 
Samoan who ever wears stockings is our old king, Malie- 
toa, and he wears ^hem only on the three great govern- 
ment days of the Consuls, when he has to wear his uni- 
form and shoes, and even then he hurries home as soon 
as he can and takes them off, because they hurst his feet. 
No, Tamaita'i, there can be no Christmas for us in Vaiala. 
because we have no stockings." 
"Well, then, Talolo, we shall have to give up that way 
of keeping the feast, for Santa Claus would find nothing 
if he were to come to these islands." 
"He would never come here. He must be an aitu of 
your island, and he would be afraid of the Samoan aitu. 
You don't know what fearful things walk about at night, 
but we Samoans know, and we are afraid of them, be- 
cause we have seen so many hurt in the darkness until 
they die." 
"Still you shall have your Papalangi Christmas after 
all, Talolo," I hastened to reassure my sorowing little 
companion. "Only half of the people in my country 
hang up their stockings. There is another way just as 
good." 
"I see how that is," replied the boy, with sudden joy 
giving him new comprehension. "There is one way for 
Papalangi, who turn their faces toward the Government; 
there is one way also for those who follow the rebel 
chiefs among you — it's just like Samoa fashion." 
"Not quite, my lad; but you are right as to there 
being two ways to keep the feast. We shall have to 
try the other one. Our people go out into the bush and 
cut down a tree. This they set up in the house and 
on it hang the presents and the bright candles and the 
boxes of candy, and when the evening comes all the 
children assemble and the good things are picked off 
the tree for them," 
"It's just like climbing the tree when you want a 
cocoanut to drink," was Talolo's ready comparison. 
"Our bush is full of trees, and our men will cut you one, 
and then we can climb for our Christmas, and we shall 
be just like the Papalangi." 
It was by no means as easy as it seemed to Talolo, 
His bush was indeed full of trees, but they were giants, 
far too high to find room under any Samoan roof, and 
among them all was not one that could in the least 
simulate the tree familiar to our Northern Christmas. 
In the end we had to capitulate on a young cocoanut 
not more than 20 feet high. This was dug up bodily from 
the place where it was growing at the edge of the little 
River Fuesa, and was planted in a hole dug for it in the 
earthes floor of the guest house of the village. Nothing 
could be more unlike the Christmas tree of common 
use, but it was certainly the only native tree that could 
be used to hang the gifts upon. 
The dissiniiliarity by no means ended with the tree. 
It was as strange an effort to reproduce a Christmas 
celebration as could well be imagined. The tree made 
a fine showing, with its colored candles and tinsel orna- 
ments, but it seemed unusual to find ah the gifts hanging 
from the sword-like leaflets 20 feet in air. Instead of the 
clear air and bracing cold which one associates with 
Christmas it was hotter than can be imagined in a New 
York July, and the rain was pouring down in torrents. 
Long before the hour set for the show, the children as- 
sembled in the pelting rain, each protecting his hair 
against the wet by caps made of green banana leaves, and 
their elders crowded into nearby houses. When the side 
screens were raised on the leeward side — for in the di- 
rection of the slant of the rain it was necessary to keep 
them down — there was a scene as bright as it was rare. 
The candles on the trees shed their light upon the 
pendent treasures, and the old women kept up a roaring 
blaze of dry cocoanut leaves in the firepots, which left no 
part of the house in darkness. As soon as the screens were 
raised the whole village, young and old, managed to 
squeeze into the house and packed it to its utmost limit^; 
but there was perfect order, for Samoan children never 
skylark in the presence of their elders. 
It would read like an inventorj' of the stock taking of 
a toy dealer if I were to attempt to tell what presents 
were given, and the names of the recipients would be a 
Vaiala census. Each of the adults received a piece of 
dress goods — no great thing for a people who go clad at 
all times in four yards of calico — a tin of meat or salmon 
and four hard biscuit. These useful articles were not 
hung upon the tree, but served out by my servants from 
boxes on the floor. The interest centered in the children. 
Talole was delighted to act as master of the cere- 
monies. He it was who looked after the niceties of 
Samoan etiquette, which reach down even into child 
life, and saw to it that each young person was called 
up strictly in the order of parental rank, so that there might 
be no heart-burniy.gs. Each child as called came to the 
tree, inserted its ankles in the climbing cord and climbed 
to the crown of leaves and plucked the bundle bearing 
the name that had been summoned. The tots that were 
too young to climb enjoyed the services of some one of 
Talolo's corps of assistants who were ready enough to 
climb and pluck this unwonted fruit. Young and old 
were made happy with their gifts, and as rigid Samoan 
custom prescribes that presents should be made in re- 
turn to the giver of the feast, there was a huge pile of 
mats and baskets and chickens and taro for myself that it 
took Tanoa the better part of an hour to announce when 
the show was over, and which served my domestic larder 
for weeks. 
There was only one of the gifts that led to conse- 
quences — a Speaking doll that I had set aside for my 
favorite small child, little Apikali, in some sort a sister 
to Talolo, at least a daughter of Le Patu. While the 
celebration was in itself a Christian one, and the people 
are now all Christian, the unusual power of the doll 
that could say "papa" caused, I fear, a reversion to an- 
cestral paganism. When Apikali had been instructed 
where to squeeze the puppet to bring forth the sound, and 
had made her first essay at it, she dropped the doll in 
the vocal instant. Such a surprise was too great for the 
child— it was, indeed, too great for the elders, and they 
went into the most animated council over the strange 
phenomenon. There was a general disinclination to trifle 
with such occult powers, and it was only after long de- 
bate that Apikali's grandfather, old Lauta, took the doll 
and squeezed it. It was just about the limit of his 
courage that he too did not drop the strange creature. 
Timidly^ he ventured to squeeze it again and elicit the 
sound "papa." I overheard him say something about 
the aitu in the doll, the strange spiritual essence with 
which Samoans people the dark and all lonely places. 
Then something else was said which I did not hear, and 
the men brought each a pebble to the doll and made a 
heap on which the puppet was set in state. 
.A-fterward Tanoa was gradually induced to tell me th« 
